According to the Anderson's side of the story, Hanauer freaked out when TED did not choose his speech as the one of the select few that get featured on the organization's website.

Noting that TED only posts one talk per day on its homepage, Anderson explains that TED officials decided not to feature Hanauer's speech because they deemed it "explicitly partisan" and because it got "mediocre" reception.

"He did not react well. He had hired a PR firm to promote the talk to MoveOn and others, and the PR firm warned us that unless we posted he would go to the press and accuse us of censoring him. We again declined and this time I wrote him and tried gently to explain in detail why I thought his talk was flawed.

So he forwarded portions of the private emails to a reporter and the National Journal duly bit on the story. And it was picked up by various other outlets."